Reviews by MathBrush

This game was made in conjunction with Inktober, which means the author made one part of it every day of the month of October. So there are 30 different 'mini games' put into one.

The game starts on a dark and spooky night. Alone in the house, you have to do chores. Once you do, you have such nightmares...

The bulk of the game consists of the 30 nightmares. In each one, you play as a Binksi character (a system allowing you to walk around a minimalistic pixel graphic world with limited 2-frame animations and selective color palettes).

The nightmares have a lot of variety in types, but some are more represented than the others. The most common are ones where there are several copies of the same object scattered on the screen, and you have to pick them all up, each one producing some text which is at first random then eventually repeated, before you can move on. This was good, but became a bit tedious over time. I preferred the large animals who had deep conversations, and I liked a graveyard with ghosts.

The writing is self-introspective, open and refreshing with self insecurities, kind of like the lyrics to Joni Mitchell songs.

The ending caught me by surprise, and I thought the game had broken. I'm still not sure if there's anything you can do on the final screen, but it was effective and different.

This game isn't the usual sort of thing I review. While it firmly falls into the category of what I think of as interactive fiction (due to being a story mostly told through words where you take part in it), it contains a lot of graphical and auditory elements as well.

It's in the genre of 'lost game', one I've enjoyed in the past; I liked the NES Godzilla Creepypasta before and stories like Lavender Town and Ben Died are all over the internet. More recently I've been introduced to Pets Cop.

This game primarily features Binksi, which is a combination of Ink, the scripting language, and Bitsi, which is used for making minimalistic pixel art games that trigger text when you walk into objects.

But, unlike most Binksi games, this is all set within a CRT screen inside the page, so it looks all warped and weird. Also, there is excellent French narration with captions. Usually, timed text is annoying because I read fast and it's too slow; here, I struggled to read it before it moved on, due to being a non-native speaker.

Like most found-lost-games, the game in the game is unfinished, and you have to experience it through a variety of different levels created at different times. The different levels provide insight into the creator's mindset as he deteriorates over time. Different game elements are specifically pointed out as symbolising certain aspects of the creator's life.

Levels vary; they include an interrogation in a Russian-themed prison; a confrontation in a castle; and a pretty annoying giant invisible maze (but which is solvable fairly quickly). At one point I thought the game had glitched and restarted, only to find that I just hadn't explored enough. The ending was a dramatic shift and seemed to be a suiting climax that brought the whole game together.

I would give this game a 4/5 as it is well made but has many elements that don't suit my interests. However, I am giving it 5/5 solely due to the chunk of English Inform 7 code that was found in the game, since it reminded me of a game I once had to write in a similar format. It was well done.

This game is about aliens coming to earth and holding the earth hostage until you, an above-average intelligence human, can solve a bomb defusing problem that comes down to flipping a series of switches in every poissible combination without repeating.

When I was a young man, my father helped local missionaries, and one day he asked me to travel with one to an appointment. That missionary got lost and was confused, so he went back home and we both waited for an hour until the rest of our group came back. It was the most boring time of my life. To entertain myself, I tried to tap out every combination of fingers on my right hand without repeats: 12345, 12354, etc. and it filled up the time.

So I already had the solution 'in hand' when playing this game, but it was interesting to see it sketched out.

The puzzle itself is interesting, and the framing story is good, imo. For my personal tastes, I would have enjoyed some physical characterization to compliment the mental and emotional characterization. For instance, the aliens are described as "They are about as weird as you expected, but all the same, they look weird in some unexpected ways and normal in others. They look weird enough to you that you know you must look pretty weird to them as well." This gives a ton of information about your emotional state and your mental reaction, but little on the aliens themselves. That's not necessarily bad; a lot of the best science fiction and horror rely on indescribable things. I just thought it'd be cool to learn more in this scenario.

Last comment is that while this was entered into the single choice jam, it felt like a lot more than 1 choice to me. There are multiple correct patterns, for instance, and the version I played had at least two areas (the 3 puzzle and the 4 puzzle) that allowed those multiple patterns. So I think it's marginal when it comes to the theme, but overall I enjoy this type of puzzle.

This set of 4 games was a special entry to the 2023 Spring Thing consisting of games written by a teacher and students for their own mini-Spring Thing.

Each game has the theme of Mirror, and I enjoyed seeing how that theme played out. In one, it was an incidental but crucial part of a real-life story; in others, it represented portals; in another, the device used to play the game.

Each game had some imaginative thought, but each could be significantly developed. Many stopped early, only partway through a story; all had a little bit of typos to be cleaned up; many had difficulty figuring out how to branch effectively (like offering choices but some choices are 'fake' and say 'you have to try the other choice'). The biggest thing they all need is time; however, for a school assignment, it is difficult to find such time. But I could see all of them making complex or richly descriptive games in the future.

This is an Adventuron game with a forward impetus: no UNDO, no going backwards on the map, only forward, often with a choice or two on how to do so.

The focus is a lot on your companion, a friend you've done many mountain races with who is not feeling as strong as before.

+Polish: The story is well-polished, free from bugs and typos as far as I could see, and responsive to commands.

+Interactivity: The inability to go back or UNDO is annoying in a puzzle game but thematically appropriate for a game about the march of time in our own lives. Good coupling of puzzle with theme.

+Descriptiveness: The locations and people were described in a way that I could easily picture it all in my mind. The changes in the weather and the passage of time were evocative.

+Emotional impact: It made me think of important events in my own life, like a funeral I attended yesterday where I didn't know the person who died but I did know some of their friends.

+Would I play again? Maybe, after a long time, but I think one time is best for now. But I would recommend it to others.

This game is written in Unity engine. It uses Roblox-like characters to tell a brief story of a man sleeping and dreaming and confronting his fears.

This game technically uses a parser but in actuality the game tells you what to type at every step, waiting until you type it correctly before moving on. There are about 10 opportunities to type. In one of them, you get to make a choice.

The graphics are amusing, although the game says they were made in one day.

Overall:
+Polish: No bugs
+Descriptiveness: The text is barebones, but the art helps
-Interactivity: Very little
-Would I play again? Don't enjoy Unreal Engine very much
-Emotional impact: Kind of muted by long slow timed sequences.

This is the third time I have played and reviewed this game. I first saw it in the Spanish Ectocomp, where I found it difficult as I had to learn new verbs, but I found the story intriguing and creepy.

I then experienced it as a French game in French comp, where it was fun contrasting the two versions.

Now here it is in English, my native language, and it's honestly a different experience this time.

In this game, you play a Russian soldier who is obsessed with writing the perfect letter home, specifically the letter you write to your family in the case of death. You are not confident in your own writing, so you steal the letters of others that die, whether on their own, or with help.

The game contrasts the insanity of war with your own insanity.

Experienced in my native language, the game is still good, but I notice more the abrupt changes in scene, emotion, and motivation. Sometimes others are suspicious of you, while at other times they take your word even in suspicious circumstances.

One difficult I had was technical; near the end, with the tent and the (Spoiler - click to show)explosives, I needed to find a word to (Spoiler - click to show)light the explosives. However, (Spoiler - click to show)LIGHT and BURN didn't work. I had to type (Spoiler - click to show)EXPLODE CHESTS to get it to work.

Overall, it's been fun seeing this over time. There were definitely some nuances I didn't understand until I saw it in English (especially since Adventuron doesn't let you copy and paste text into Google translate). I had fun.

I briefly beta tested this game.

This Adventuron game has you searching for seashells on a beach. Pretty soon, though, things take a drastic turn, and you end up (Spoiler - click to show)being able to cast spells!

The game also utilizes two protagonist perspectives which is nice, reminding me of the old Atlantis Indiana Jones game.

Overall, the mechanics worked well for me. I think the design of the game could have supported an even larger game, but it's pretty substantial already and is part of a competition for beginners, so it makes sense.

I briefly beta-tested this game.

This is a feel-good game (mostly!) about a fun children's competition in a quaint village on a summer's evening.

A carnival is in town and the Mayor is throwing a competition where you have to gather clues. You race around with a bunch of other kids who move from place to place, all of you looking for clues.

The kids running around really helps make the game feel more alive. And the puzzles in the game have a wide variety, a lot of them making use of your ability to customize requests for various items like food and flowers.

There's a vaguely sinister subplot running through as well. Even with this, though, it feels like there's not a strong narrative thread, more just an excuse to have fun, which isn't necessarily bad. Fun for a nice diversion.

I briefly beta tested this game.

This is an adventuron game about making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You start in a kitchen and have to combine the three ingredients.

The game manages to add at least 3 major twists to this setup, which is pretty amusing. They aren't all necessarily coherent, but it makes enough sense to by funny.

The main character has a definite idiosyncratic personality that shines through more and more as you play.

Overall, it's pretty solid, but could use a couple more synonyms for things (like JAR for JAM), although it's been improved since I and others tested it.